


Lighthouse

by CariZee



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Idk anything about either of those, M/M, arthur/eames gift exchange, sort of buddy cop romance, sort of undercover, what can I say I wanted something fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CariZee/pseuds/CariZee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first Eames thought it was a dream. It seemed more reasonable that he should still be dreaming than that there was no light at all, not a glimmer of it, not even from a watch or a phone or one of those stupidly trendy LED drink stirrers that Browning stocked the bar with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marourin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marourin/gifts).



> For marourin, who asked for military days or buddy cop romance or pretend couple while undercover. Well, this is...sort of that! It's got the buddy cop romance, at least, even if circumstances are rather stilted at the moment. I hope you like it :)
> 
> Extra special thanks to theninthbow for the fast and amazingly thorough beta. Any and all mistakes left within are mine.

 

At first Eames thought it was a dream. It seemed more reasonable that he should still be dreaming than that there was no light at all, not a glimmer of it, not even from a watch or a phone or one of those stupidly trendy LED drink stirrers that Browning stocked the bar with. He moved one hand to his face to feel around and verify that, yes, his eyes were genuinely open and no, blinking didn’t seem to make any difference. Except for when he pressed down hard on his eyelids, then he got those delightful little firefly phosphenes dancing across his vision, but now was not the time to play.

 

Well, then. It was dark. Another moment’s exploration revealed a knot on his temple and a sticky tackiness that, under the circumstances, was probably blood. Eames couldn’t remember being hit in the head. The last thing he remembered was…leaving Robert in the private lounge after being called to talk to Browning. Why had he needed to talk to Browning, again? Eames couldn’t remember reaching him.

 

It probably meant he’d been jumped on the way. And now he was in the dark, and the floor felt like concrete, and the wall he was leaned against was just as hard, and it was bloody cold for all it was July outside, and…

 

All right, fine. All was not lost. Eames was an optimist by nature; he had to be surrounded by the sourpusses of the NYPD. Eames might have been undercover but that didn’t mean he was without backup. He had Arthur, lovely Arthur, keeping tabs on him from the mezzanine. And no matter how much Arthur bitched about the stink of too many bodies and the mind-numbing repetitiveness of the The Company’s house DJ, he would not give up on Eames. His professionalism was legend, and the moment he noticed trouble, Arthur would be hieing to his rescue.

 

_Hieing_. Lovely word, that. Eames let himself reflect on it as he pushed unsteadily to his hands and knees, refusing to give in to the murmur of panic in the back of his mind. Arthur was less one who hied and more one who strode about purposefully, and right now he was probably striding right back into The Company with enough police to make a real search of it. Eames could tell from the faint thud of the bass that he was still within the club. Arthur would find him.

 

Right now what _he_ needed to do was find a door. Maybe he’d miraculously find it unlocked and be able to save himself. He crawled across the floor carefully, arms akimbo, searching for anything that might be useful. The concrete was cool and gritty, and Eames resolutely didn’t think about things like rats and cockroaches and no, hm-mm, nope, none of _those_ here, thank you very much.

 

His hands did not hit a door, or a wall. Instead they ran smack dab into someone else’s body. Eames recoiled out of habit, waiting for an outcry, but when none happened he said, “Hello?” Silence. Or, now that he was listening for it, not total silence. Whoever it was, they were breathing. That was pleasant. “Hello?” Eames asked again, bringing his face a little closer. Still nothing. Out cold, beaten or drugged. Who was in here with him, and why?

 

Eames had a sudden, terrible premonition. He felt along the person’s arm, all the way up to his neck where his hands encountered… a double Windsor. Oh god, only one person would wear that kind of tie to a club like this, and only that same person would be able to pull it off in the middle of a bunch of neon-colored, assless-chapped, glow-in-the-dark ravers. He felt over the ears, just to make sure. Yep. Eames sighed, feeling a lot less confident all of a sudden.

 

“Arthur.”

 

Fortunately for both of them Arthur woke up a short time later, interrupting Eames’ internal debate as to whether or not he should pat Arthur down in an effort to find out if he was seriously injured. He’d been leaning toward _yes_ , because he really was concerned about his partner, but still stuck with a dogged _no_ because of the creeper factor of feeling him up while unconscious.

 

“Fuck,” Arthur groaned succinctly, and suddenly Eames could breathe again. “What hit me?”

 

“A goon, I suppose,” Eames offered helpfully. “They seemed to be quite handy with their blackjacks. Feeling all right, darling? Can I lend you a hand up?”

 

“Don’t call me darling.” Still, he let Eames help lift him into a sitting position. “Where are we?”

 

“Somewhere beneath the club, I think. What happened to you?”

 

“ _You_ happened to me,” Arthur said irritably. He was still holding onto Eames’ arm though, despite his evident annoyance. “One minute you’re in the lounge, relatively safe, and the next minute you’re being towed down a private hallway, feet dragging. I couldn’t tell what had happened over the comm and I was…I needed to find _out_ what was happening, so I followed you.” Eames could hear the scowl in his voice. “I didn’t get very far before more of Browning’s people were after me, though.”

 

“I’m sure you led them on a merry chase, darling.”

 

“Not merry enough.” Still, he sounded slightly mollified, which Eames counted as a win. “They cornered me, told me to put the gun down.”

 

“You brought your firearm into a club?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Didn’t bring your bloody badge, did you?”

 

Arthur scoffed. “I’m not stupid, Eames. They probably think I’m some kind of bodyguard.”

 

Eames carefully quashed the snarky statement that jumped immediately into his head and said, “I don’t suppose _you_ had time to call for backup?”

 

“I texted Ariadne while I was in pursuit. I’m pretty sure it went through.”

 

“Pretty sure…how very comforting, Arthur.”

 

“Oh shut up. This is your fault.”

 

“I’m entirely willing to concede that it is,” Eames agreed, because fair was fair. “I’m just not sure how. I hadn’t changed a bit of my approach, there was nothing to tip Browning off to my being anything other than a man he wanted to make a deal with.”

 

“Oh my god.” Eames could hear Arthur’s head hit the wall, and he winced sympathetically and patted Arthur’s arm as though the soothing gesture might travel upward. “You’re an idiot. Of _course_ you changed your approach.”

 

“And how exactly did I do that?”

 

“You did it,” Arthur snapped, “when you kissed Robert.”

 

“What? No!” Or rather, only sort of. “I mean that yes, I did kiss him, but only as a means of getting information out of him. Robert’s the weak link, Arthur; we established that before I went in. If there’s information to be had, it’s through him.”

 

“I get that,” Arthur replied, sounding disturbingly calm after his outburst. Eames knew that tone. It meant his partner was getting ready to level him with logic. “But you didn’t consider all the consequences of your actions. Who owns this club?”

 

“Robert Fischer.”

 

“But who _runs_ this club?”

 

This was elementary information. “Peter Browning. What’s your bloody point, Arthur?”

 

“My point is that Peter Browning is a megalomaniac narcissist who needs to keep Robert under his thumb in order to keep The Company running the way he wants to. He’s done a good job of isolating Robert, which made the tactic of getting close to him so appealing, and I get that.” Arthur’s voice could have been Death Valley, it went so dry. “There’s a difference between providing Robert with a distraction and becoming Browning’s competition, though, and you crossed that line.”

 

“Oh, I didn’t.”

 

“You obviously did to Browning.”

 

“It was one little kiss, there wasn’t even any tongue,” Eames protested, then belatedly stopped with the details as he realized that they probably wouldn’t endear him any to Arthur right now. It was too late to avoid the sting of his sarcasm, though.

 

“Oh, no tongue, well, that makes it all just fine.”

 

“Arthur. Listen, I might have miscalculated—”

 

“Did. You _did_ miscalculate, and now we’re both stuck in a cellar beneath a club in the dark, and we have no idea whether someone is going to find us before we suffocate or I lose my mind and _kill_ you, and—”

 

Well, that train of thought couldn’t be allowed to continue. “Arthur.” Eames reached down and found his hands, which were digging brutally into each other. “Are you afraid of the dark?”

 

“No!”

 

Eames ran his thumbs over Arthur’s wrists, caressing his racing pulse points. “Really? It’s all right, darling, you can tell me. You already know about my debilitating fear of the bloody Postmodernists. Anything’s got to be less embarrassing than a generalized artistic phobia, come on now.”

 

Arthur sighed, the sound trembling the way his body somehow wasn’t. “It’s not the dark. It’s…the tight quarters.”

 

“Ah.” A bit of claustrophobia. It could be worse. “Well then. What can we do about that?”

 

“Nothing. Nothing. I’m fine. I’ll just…sit here and be fine, and Ariadne will find us and get us out in a little while. It’s fine.”

 

“I’d like you to be somewhat better than fine if at all possible, Arthur.”

 

Greek Stoics would weep in the face of Arthur’s ridiculously stiff upper lip. “Well tough, you don’t always get what you wish for.”

 

“Come now, darling,” Eames cajoled. “Let me help you. Let’s take your mind off of things. There’s no reason to suffer by yourself when you can make me suffer with you, am I right?”

 

“I’m not a kid, Eames. I don’t need to be coddled.”

 

“I’m not suggesting coddling you, I’m suggesting keeping you from having a completely needless nervous breakdown while we tolerate our very temporary captivity. Come on, Arthur, let me help.”

 

In a voice just barely thawed, Arthur said, “And how do you think you can help me?”

 

Eames grinned in the darkness, sure the expression would bleed through into his voice. “I thought you’d never ask. Come and sit next to me.”

 

“I’m not moving.”

 

“Arthur…”

 

“My back is against the door,” Arthur continued. “I can feel the seam of the metal. That means when this door opens, the first thing that will happen is I’ll fall through it. That can’t happen soon enough, as far as I’m concerned, so I’m staying right here.”

 

“Fine. Then let me come to you.”

 

There was a long pause before Arthur finally said, “Fine. Fine, just—get over here and don’t be smug.”

 

“Darling,” Eames said as he scooted across the floor until their sides were flush. “I’m never smug.”

 

“Yes you are. I can hear it in your voice, you’re being smug right now.”

 

“Not at all. I’m filled with due remorse for all the problems my actions have caused.”

 

Arthur snorted. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”  


“No, I do, I really do.” Eames hadn’t let go of Arthur’s hand, and he stroked Arthur’s sweaty palm, fingers sliding out from the very center in a star pattern. He wasn’t sure why he himself was being so calm, honestly. It was just as likely that Browning would be the next one through the door, with a gun and a word of casual regret that they wouldn’t be doing business together, so sorry, better luck next time— _bang bang!_ But there was something about being needed by Arthur, when usually it was the other way around, that made it easy for Eames to keep his head.

 

“You know,” he mused as he pet Arthur’s hand, feeling him relax infinitesimally against Eames’ shoulder, “technically, we’re not working right now.”

 

“Technically we never went off the clock, and currently we’re stuck in a hole, so I think the situation qualifies as part of the job, Eames.”

 

“No, no, you’ve got to change your thinking about it,” Eames encouraged him. “Try to regard this as a very dark, cozy, comfy little getaway from the real world. A brief respite from the demands of king and country—”

 

“You’ve been an American citizen for how long now, and yet you still use that stupid phrase?”

 

“Two years. And that isn’t the point, darling. The point is you’ve got to dream a little bigger.  This place?” He laid a hand over Arthur’s eyes, pretending to shut out the light. “A harbor, somewhere with boats, some place you’d like to visit. The ground?” He ran Arthur’s fingertips over the concrete. “It’s an old brick wall we’re sitting on, looking out at the waves. You can hear them, can’t you, the gentle movement of the water against the quay. It’s calm and cool and beautiful out, and everything is all right.”

 

There was a pause, and then— “This is stupid.”

 

“No it isn’t, you’re just having a hard time letting go of yourself. It’s all right, Arthur, there’s no one here to judge you. No one cares. I just want you to be happy and relaxed and calm, and enjoy the sea.” After another moment, Arthur sighed and laid his head against Eames’ shoulder. “There you go, darling. Not so bad, is it?”

 

“No,” Arthur agreed after a moment. “Not so bad.”

 

“What are you looking at, then? Some tropical island somewhere, the Keys, maybe the Hamptons…”

 

“The Oregon coast.”

 

That was a bit of a surprise. “Oregon, really?”

 

He felt Arthur shrug. “There’s a lighthouse there called the Tillamook Rock Light. It’s on a little island not too far out, just remote enough to be appealing.”

 

Naturally remoteness was appealing to Arthur. Eames nestled in a little closer and listened to Arthur explain the lighthouse’s natural beauty, how seabirds nested there part of the year and how it was only reachable by helicopter. “And it was a columbarium for a while, although that got shut down in ’99.”

 

“A columbarium? As in a place to stick a funeral urn?” How did Arthur even know these things?

 

“What else would you use a columbarium for?” Arthur asked dryly, but Eames wasn’t letting him get away with it that easily.

 

“Well, I thought that you might be mistaken, given that at the moment we’re essentially shut up in a…well…timing and circumstance, darling, that’s all I’m saying.”

 

“I actually wouldn’t mind something like that, if I were dead,” Arthur mused. “Someplace where you could always hear the sea.”

 

“You wouldn’t mind anything when you were dead, Arthur. It’s rather a side effect of the deathly condition.”

 

Arthur elbowed him gently. “You know what I mean.”

 

“Your mind is usually an open book to me, love, but this time I’m afraid I don’t.”

 

“It’s not a bad thought because I’m with you.” Arthur sounded embarrassed, but Eames was rather charmed. That didn’t mean he was going to let his partner off easy, though.

 

“So you’re saying that you wouldn’t mind dying in my arms, is that what you mean?”

 

Arthur’s hand found his cheek and turned Eames head to face him. “That,” he said seriously, “is exactly what I mean.” Then he leaned in and kissed Eames. This was a bedroom kiss, a closed-doors kiss, the kind of kiss that Eames never got unless they were alone. It was sweet and soft and a little vulnerable, the way Arthur hated to be. In public he was hard, straight-edged and sharp-tongued, never someone to be trifled with. It had taken months for him to open up to Eames, much less expand the definition of partner to something beyond professional. The two of them together were almost a contradiction of terms; one of them always giving everyone he met a new version of himself just to throw them off, the other always ignoring anyone else’s opinions of him and never giving quarter. Only when they were by themselves could Arthur be himself—secret nerd and closet romantic.

 

Eames kissed back, just as soft to start then more intensely as the heat between them built. If they were going to be shot, if this was it, then Eames wasn’t going out without the taste of his lover on his lips.

 

Naturally that was the moment the door opened, with their full weight leaning against it as they held onto each other. They fell backwards onto their sides, and stared blinking up into the shocking brightness of the light and at Ariadne, who stared down at them for a moment, then put her hands on her hips.

 

“Well,” she said, “I guess I don’t have to worry about you guys being all right.”

 

Arthur picked himself up and brushed himself off like nothing had happened, and then helped Eames up. “You got my text, then.”

 

“Sure did!” she said cheerfully. “And Robert Fischer was more than willing to tell me where you guys were. Apparently _someone_ made an impression.”

 

“And I will make an impression in his face with the sole of my shoe if he comes anywhere near us,” Arthur snapped. Eames looked on at him appreciatively. It wasn’t every day Arthur lost his composure like that. Eames rather liked it.

 

To her credit, Ariadne didn’t chide Arthur for his moment of temper. “I’ll pass that along. You guys need to check in with Cobb, he’s been losing his mind.”

 

“Will do, pet,” Eames promised. “Just one moment.” He turned back to Arthur, took him by the lapels of his leather jacket and laid one last, hard kiss on his mouth. “I know a man with a helicopter,” he murmured against Arthur’s lips. “How would you like to go see a lighthouse the next time we have a few days?”

 

Arthur smiled. “Sounds good.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
